Is It Love?

After reading the novel Wuthering Heights,  the main thought and question that I pondered over was whether the characters in the novel really had or expressed love in any specific way. This questions comes from the questions eight and nine from the Wuthering Heights Socratic Seminar questions. The three main characters whose love is in question are Edgar, Heathcliff, and Catherine. Catherine in the novel has to chose between Edgar and Heathcliff, and choses social class, which is represented by Edgar, over passion, which is represented by Heathcliff. Catherine in my opinion did not really feel love for Edgar. I think he was a respectable, "safety net" for her in a way because he had financial stability, and was a safe choice as a husband. Catherine knew that Edgar could give her the luxuries that she wanted, and she knew that Heathcliff could not provide those luxuries for her. However, I feel that Edgar truly had strong feelings for Catherine. He became extremely jealous when he realizes that Catherine still might have feelings for Heathcliff, and forces her to choose between himself and Heathcliff. I also feel that Edgar had strong feelings of love for Catherine because he doted on her left and right, and they had a child, Cathy together. I dont necessarily believe that having a child together means that they love each other, but I overall got the feeling that Edgar had feelings os love for Catherine, which she was unable to reciprocate due to her feelings for Heathcliff. The question of whether Catherine and Heathcliff love each other is a question that I find harder to answer. In my opinion, there is a great amount of passion between the two, but I never really got the sense of love. I think they only felt strongly for each other because they knew that they could never be together from the beginning. So it was wanting something that you know you could never have, which raises curiosity from each person. In my opinion, Catherine and Heathcliff did not truly love each other, because if you really love someone, you could never imagine bringing or wishing harm or pain to them, or their family. Heathcliff brings harm and pain to Cathy and Edgar, because he felt such strong feelings for Catherine, and she ended up dying before they could ever really be together, although I dont think they ever would have truly been together anyways. Heathcliff causes pain to almost everyone by the end of the novel because of the pain that he feels inside. I think he believes he loves Catherine, but I think he just loved the idea of having someone who he could never truly have. Of course this all depends on how each individual views and values love. After really thinking it over, I believe that instead of a sense of love in this novel, there is a sense of wanting something that you can never have in Heathcliff's case, and the idea of settling for financial stability and other reasons instead of love.

Is it love?

For my October monthly blog, I decided to choose a socratic seminar question from Wuthering Heights. We have not yet had a socratic seminar for Wuthering Heights, but I have read enough through the book to where I can answer question 9. which asks, "Do Edgar and Catherine love each other?" This question is one that I actually pondered on as I  read in the book that Catherine decided to accept Edgar's marriage proposal. In my opinion, I do believe that Edgar really does love Catherine, because he is easily jealous of the relationship between Healthcliff and Catherine, and he proposed to Catherine in the first place, but I dont really think that Catherine loves Edgar. I think that Catherine is somewhat fond of him, but I think that she did not marry Edgar for love. Catherine admits to Nelly that she would be financially secure with Edgar, and he can give her the material possessions that she wants and she knows that Healthcliff cannot give her those things. As time goes on into their marriage, I think Catherine will grow more fond of Edgar, but it is apparent that she does not appreciate the jealousy that he has with the relationship between Catherine and Healthcliff. After really thinking about the questions "Is it love?", I found myself comparing the relationship between Edgar and Catherine to the relationship between Dominique Francon and Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead. Dominique agrees to marry Gail for reasons other than love, while she truly loves someone else, Howard Roark. And I believe that Catherine really loves Healthcliff, but is married to Edgar for other reasons. In the real world as well, people often do not marry for the purpose of love. Some people marry another person because they are wealthy, or they are forced to through an arranged marriage or any other kind of example. This is how this question can be related to life. Overall my opinion is that Catherine does not truly love Edgar, but is inseatd fond of him; and Edgar really does love Catherine because he feels jealousy towards Healthcliff due to their childhood relationship, and he did indeed ask Catherine to marry him, which I assume he did due to the love that he feels for her.

Complete Selflessness

I believe that question #42 in The Fountainhead socratic seminar guide is a very interesting question to ask oneself or others. This question is brought about in the novel by the character Ellsworth Toohey who states, "A totally selfless interest in one's fellow men is possible in this world, Peter." The overall question was asked, is this statement honestly true? In class we discussed how Ayn Rand believe that it was impossible for a human being to be completely selfless, because she believed that people would be selfless to better themselves and for thier own purpose. For example, during our class discussion someone brought up the fact that mothers would selflessly give their lives for their children, but Ayn Rand believed that this was not complete selflessness, but instead being selfish. Ayn Rand gave evidence for this theory by saying that a mother who would give her own life for her children was being selfish in the fact that she wanted to protect what was most precious to her, her treasure, which would be her children. So the overall motive of the mother would be to save her "treasure." After hearing this example in class, it really got me thinking. Until we really delved down deep into the question of complete selflessness, I never really thought too much about the fact that complete selflessness might not even exist. In the novel, The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey appears to be selfless towards Peter Keating with helping him be successful with his work and setting up clientle for his architecture profession. However by the end of the novel, it is realized that Ellsworth Toohey just wanted some loyal followers who would not stand in his way with his dream of taking over everything, including The Banner, which was controlled by Gail Wynand. After really thinking about the question of complete selflessness, I have come to the conclusion that selflessness does in fact exist. People like police officers and firefighters give their lives, and put themselves in harms way for people who they dont even know everyday. Why should Ayn Rand be the person to question this thought? After hearing about her history and childhood, I could understand how she could eventually question complete selflessness in human beings, but Ayn Rand has so many theories and practically an entire dufferent way of thinking and portrayng human beings, so I really didnt believe her theories or understand her questions and concepts from the beginning. Overall in my opinion, complete selflessness does indeed exist, and is shown every single day in the world and society which we live in.